


Throw Yourself into the Unknown

by literalfuckinggarbage



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (I'll edit this when I have less emotions), Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Alternate Universe - Human, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exile Caleb Widogast, First Kiss, Inspired by The Song of Achilles, M/M, Prince Mollymauk Tealeaf, Prophecy, no beta we die like men, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28679610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literalfuckinggarbage/pseuds/literalfuckinggarbage
Summary: He was god touched, resplendent and breathtaking.Beside him, Caleb was nothing, but Mollymauk never made him feel as such. Sometimes, with the way Molly looked at him, he could almost believehewas the god touched one, not the one exiled and forsaken.In fact, he only felt like a worthwhile person beside his prince.His prince, who didn’t care about how Caleb’s parents died, about the horrible king from the land he was exiled from, about any aspect of his past. His prince, who was endlessly kind and open to him, who could take his breath away with a lyre in his hands just as well as a sword. His prince, who he would follow anywhere.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf & Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65





	Throw Yourself into the Unknown

**Author's Note:**

> I just read all of _Song of Achilles_ in 24 hours and it 1) gave me an hour long anxiety attack because of all the suicidal ideation, 2) made me cry from the moment Patroclus put on Achilles' armor until the last page, and 3) is probably one of the best things I've ever read. So I wrote this to cope.

_And there may not be meaning_

_So find one and seize it_

_Do not waste your self on this roof_

_Throw yourself into the unknown_

_With pace and a fury defiant_

_Clothe yourself in beauty untold_

_And see life as a means to a triumph_

~

He was god touched, resplendent and breathtaking.

Beside him, Caleb was nothing, but Mollymauk never made him feel as such. Sometimes, with the way Molly looked at him, he could almost believe _he_ was the god touched one, not the one exiled and forsaken.

In fact, he only felt like a worthwhile person beside his prince.

His prince, who didn’t care about how Caleb’s parents died, about the horrible king from the land he was exiled from, about any aspect of his past. His prince, who was endlessly kind and open to him, who could take his breath away with a lyre in his hands just as well as a sword. His prince, who he would follow anywhere.

When Caleb arrived at their kingdom, taken into the motley crew of the king’s fostered children, he spoke to no one. With the smell of his parents' corpses still fresh and raw in his memory he found nothing in common with the other boys who went through their drills with no real concept of death. How could he find anything to share with them when each night he was tormented by the sound of his parents’ screams?

The drills were tedious and his limbs no longer worked as they should, gangly and unfocused as his brain attempted to untangle everything that had happened to him. Everything he had seen in his short life. And everything that could happen with a spear in his hand as he was trained to be yet another loyal soldier.

The only relief came in the form of meals, where Caleb would sit far from the other children and retreat in on himself. The food was good and something to take the taste of ash away from his tongue.

In the beginning, it was the only time he ever saw the prince.

The other children flocked around the god touched boy like he was already king, hanging on his every word and hoping to win his favor. Caleb was focused on his meal for the most part, but as the ash faded from his mouth he felt more himself. Less like an empty husk, a ghost.

Occasionally he dared to look up at Mollymauk, to take in his stunning presence, the delicate curves of his jaw and neck as he laughed, the bright gleam in his eyes, the warm twist of his smile, full of mischief and mirth. Somehow, the prince always managed to meet his eyes, filling Caleb with some unnamed emotion that swirled uncomfortably in his guts. Whatever it was he was too frightened to name, and he did his best to avoid the boy’s eyes.

It didn’t work.

The prince moved his table full of children closer, then closer still, then one day sat at the table Caleb usually occupied before he could get a chance to.

He felt like a puppet being made to dance with yanking strings, but carefully positioned himself far across the room. If he looked half as tormented as he felt, though that was through no real fault of the prince, perhaps the boy would be satisfied. But when their eyes met, as they inevitably did, Molly’s were only filled with a soft disappointment.

Somehow, Caleb had made a mess of even this strange dance he was meant to do.

When the prince found him hiding from his morning drills, alone in a stock room, he felt real fear again, not just the echo of fear that resonated within him whenever he thought of his past, of his parents trapped in flames, their screams, of King Ikithon’s face.

"I've been looking for you."

The words almost made him tremble, but he was good at not showing fear. There was no good explanation for why Bren had abandoned his drills. As prince, the boy standing over him had every right to chastise and punish him. With his lean muscle and god touched limbs, Caleb was sure he could.

Caleb only bowed his head, waiting for the inevitable blow. He hoped it would be discreet, though it would be difficult for the others to ostracize him anymore than they already did. It was beyond hope for them to accept him.

"Are you ill?"

He blinked, confusion painting his face even as he stared down in submission. "No."

"Then you'll need some other excuse. You might be able to fake it though."

What on Earth was he talking about? He didn't know how to tell the prince that the smell of the fireplaces was too strong, smelled too much like a wooden house, a house with a cart blocking the door, consumed in flames. He had vomited his dinner the first time he smelled it, but that had been last week.

Caleb risked a look up at the prince. Seeing all the soft and thoughtful lines of his body directed at him was enough to take his breath away for a moment. Sometimes, with his easy laugh and relaxed demeanor it was easy to forget he was god touched. This was not one of those times.

He was heart stoppingly beautiful, with a pensive look across his brow. "I'll say you were with me at my lessons."

Normally Caleb would never talk back. He couldn't find the words. But today he couldn't stop himself. "You would lie to your father?"

"I'm not the biggest fan of the truth. I don't often bother to tell it."

He said the words so casually, as if they weren’t completely different from everything Caleb knew. Lying meant a beating. That's how things were. "I don't understand."

Perhaps he would be told he was not meant to understand. Or to shut up. Either would have made sense, but Molly said, "Never trust the truth. The truth is vicious, the truth thinks that you owe it something… None of that. I like my bullshit. It’s good, it’s happy, it makes other people happy."

"Are you… Are you trying to make me happy?" Caleb asked, attempting to understand.

"Good, I thought you'd catch on quick. You always seemed smart." Molly extended a hand towards him and Caleb tried and failed not to flinch. His sure expression faltered and there was something soft behind it. Something almost like the pitying looks he got from the king and the others, but gentler. "Come on. If you're worried about lying, I'll take you to my lessons. It won't be a lie then."

Tentatively, though he managed to keep his hand from shaking, he let the prince haul him to his feet.

When he heard the prince strum on the lyre, the very one Caleb had brought as a gift to King Gustav, the one that had been his mother's, carved with the steady hand of his father, salvaged from the wreckage, he felt silent tears flow down his face.

Molly looked like he was going to say something, ask Caleb what was wrong or if he’d like to learn to play. He couldn’t stop the words tumbling out of his mouth, “Play again.”

One did not command a prince. He would surely be beaten, if not by the prince, than by the teacher looking on from behind his back, where the man couldn’t see Caleb’s tears. But nothing of the sort occurred. A broad smile bloomed across the prince’s face, brighter than the sun, as he began to play once more. This time he sang with a soft tenor that filled the room and Caleb’s chest with beautiful, resonant sound.

His tears stopped, but the feeling of awe wasn’t diminished.

Molly then brought Caleb to his father’s throne, and told the king he wanted Caleb as a companion. He told him that was the reason Caleb was missing drills.

In shock, Caleb froze before the king’s feet where they both knelt. Gustav asked the question he was dying to know himself. “Why this boy?”

Why had he become the prince’s charity case? Why on Earth would someone like Mollymauk want _him?_

“He’s interesting.”

That night, he was to sleep in Molly’s room. His bed in the dorms was stripped bare and there was a small pallet set up in the prince’s chambers. Caleb felt his stomach swirling as he went through the nightly motions to prepare for bed not alongside the other children, but next to the prince. As they stripped down, the prince would see his scars, burn marks along his arms and the lash of a whip across his back.

But Molly had scars all up and down his arms and torso too, hidden under his tunic just like Caleb’s. He flashed a knowing little smile. “We match.”

Caleb didn’t have anything to say to that.

There was something about being in the prince’s room instead of being with the rows of other children sleeping in the dormitory space across the palace. Caleb still had nightmares, but even as he woke with his heart racing, he could hear the steady breaths of the prince, see his chest rise and fall across the room. It was something dependable, something he could match his own breaths to, and with the fresh sea air blowing in from the window he began to taste salt over ash. He could smell lavender and sandalwood instead of smoke.

He became Mollymauk’s personal companion. They would swim in the river, hike together in the mountains, share secrets as Caleb pointed out the constellations, and spend every waking moment together. Caleb became the only one to see Molly fight, and he was more and more impressed with the threads of divinity running through him every day. How he managed to bask in its glory, he would never know. But he was eternally grateful.

After a few weeks of this, Caleb stopped waiting to be sent away. He felt more comfortable, more free. For the first time in his life he felt free to speak his mind, unafraid to ask Molly whatever questions popped into his head. 

They told the stories of their scars as they laid bare in the sand after swimming, and Caleb shivered as Molly traced his nimble fingers over the red lines on his back. He would have reached up to do the same, but he never wanted to break the spell and stop Molly from gently running his fingers up and down his back. If the sun hadn’t set and sent them both into shivers, he would have stayed there forever. He might have anyway, if Molly hadn’t taken his hand and guided him back to his, no, their chambers.

The nightmares still came, but it was easier every night, knowing Molly was there. His vivacity could outshine any fears Caleb had of death or pain.

Still, he would wake with his heart racing a few times a week, sucking in air and making sure it smelled of fresh salt, not smoke.

One night, when he turned to look at Molly’s sleeping form, illuminated in the moonlight, his eyes were open, staring in concern. Caleb froze in his cot, worried by the sudden inspection he seemed to be under. What would his prince find when he looked at how his hands shook and his chest trembled in near sobs?

“Come here.”

This was it. 

Caleb would be sent away for his weakness, and he would be alone again.

He stood in front of Molly’s bed while the prince continued to lie languidly in the piles of blankets and furs. With his head down, he waited for whatever reprimand was coming.

“No, come _here,”_ Molly said, and Caleb looked up to frown and saw his arm extended, the other lifting up the covers.

It took a small tug from Molly’s hand on his to send him tumbling into the soft sheets, but soon he was surrounded by warmth, limbs, and the smell of lavender. Any worries of the nightmare had left Caleb’s head, his pulse racing for another reason as Molly pulled him close.

“I hate nightmares too.”

Sometimes when Molly was awake while he had nightmares, Caleb would be invited back into the overwhelming warmth of his bed, but it was rare. Often, Caleb wished Molly would wake him when the prince had a nightmare. He wanted to offer the same comfort, but didn’t know how to put it into words, even after ruminating on the desire for months.

~

When their lips crashed together on the shore under the light of the full moon, Molly had pulled back in shock. Before Caleb could apologize, though they’d closed the gap between them together, he ran. Caleb had no hope of catching up to him; he would never be as quick.

After his prince was gone, his limbs felt locked in place. He knew that he should move away, inside and out of the Moonweaver's light, if she was truly as displeased as her god touched boy. But he had ruined everything, like he always managed to. Why would he even entertain the thought that he could hold such happiness? Why wouldn't the gods forsake Caleb Widogast just as they had forsaken the exiled Bren Aldric Ermendrud?

When Caleb came back to their room that night, he waited to be sent away. To be replaced, despite how none of the others had caught Molly’s interest.

Molly said nothing, so he just went through the motions to prepare to sleep, though he knew he would be doing nothing of the sort. Though Caleb would be exhausted tomorrow, he felt as though his heart might fly out of his chest with the way it stuttered and fluttered like a captured hummingbird. His movements were stiff and his mind was racing, cheeks still red with shame.

Silently, Mollymauk moved from his place on his bed and to the open window.

At the small wash basin, Caleb froze, watching his prince carefully close and shutter up the little window. He never did that. A few years prior, before Caleb came to the castle, Molly had been trapped in a cave-in and presumed dead. He’d had to crawl out, confused, with memory loss and covered in blood and bruises.

Since that day, he’d preferred the fresh air.

But tonight he blocked out the moon and cloaked himself and Caleb in darkness. There were no candles burning since the light of the full moon had illuminated everything in gorgeous blues. Alone together, with nothing influencing any of their decisions. No smoke, no gods, nothing but the two of them in a sliver of peace.

“She… She can’t see us now.”

Caleb swallowed in the dark. He knew even as he turned around he wouldn’t be able to see Molly, though the prince’s eyes, blessed by the Moonweaver like the rest of him, could see him perfectly.

But he could hear the voice, so uncharacteristically strained. So much so that Caleb might say he was nervous. “I thought you would want to know,” he said, pausing a moment. “That she can’t see us here.”

Involuntarily, Caleb’s lip trembled, almost imperceptibly, before he bit it so that it would still. Mollymauk took a step closer, so much so that Caleb could smell the lavender and sandalwood oil that he rubbed into the rough patches of his skin each night. “Are-are you pleased? That she cannot see us?” Caleb asked, willing his voice to steady.

In the darkness, Molly took his hand and brought it up to his cheek so that Caleb might feel him nod. He stepped even closer, until Caleb thought as though he might be able to drown just in his presence. “I am.”

Another moment passed before Molly’s other hand cupped Caleb’s cheek so they mirrored each other as Molly leaned in and brought their lips together a second time. There was something softer about it in the dark, as Caleb was overwhelmed with the sweet taste of Molly on his tongue. He felt himself unfreeze and melt into his prince, his Molly, until he was led away from his small pallet and into Molly’s bed.

As they lay panting, what felt like hours later, Claeb knew that Molly had his heart so long as it would beat. There was nothing in the world that would tear him from Molly’s side, so long as he could still fight for it. He would never fight as well as his prince, but that didn’t matter. This would be worth fighting for.

He opened his mouth to speak some of those words into existence as he lay in Molly’s arms, but they rested heavy on his tongue, unable to form.

Instead he just let Molly pull him even closer, pressing his lips into the top of his red hair and whispering with reverence, _“Caleb.”_

~

When the Moonweaver came down to visit next, she revealed herself not to Mollymauk alone, but to them both. Caleb stared up at her in shock, never having seen a goddess before. She was strange and ethereal and though she was beautiful it struck him through to the core with fear. Mortals were not meant to look upon gods and he felt it deep in his bones.

The words she spoke to Mollymauk did nothing to assuage that fear.

_Two fates bear you on to the day of death._

_If you hold out and you lay siege to Xhoras_

_Your journey home is gone, but your glory never dies._

_If you leave the wars and the battlefields behind,_

_Your pride, your glory dies..._

_True, but the life that's left to you will be long,_

_The stroke of death will not come on you quickly._

With every word out of her luminous form, Caleb felt the terror root deeper and deeper in his soul. Mollymauk simply looked resigned, lost inside himself and quiet for the rest of the evening and the next morning.

There was news about the war the next evening, in the dining hall where Molly sat beside his father, the king, and Caleb sat to his prince’s side. The king explained everything carefully to his beloved adoptive son, then let the silence hang.

Molly and Caleb did nothing to fill it.

As the plates were cleared away and many of the servants and guards left the room to fulfill other duties or prepare for bed, the king cleared his throat. “Do you think you will go?”

Molly’s eyes flickered to Caleb for a moment, so quickly he wasn’t sure it really happened.

“I don’t know.”

The king looked tired, and older than Caleb had ever seen him. His hands showed their veins and trembled just slightly as he took another sip of wine from his goblet. “They will come for you. They know of your prowess as a warrior.”

Caleb could see them now, the kings who had come to their small island in the past with greed in their eyes at the sight of his god touched prince. They would come, and they would come in droves to convince him to fight. Their argument would be confusing and their wits would be sharp.

“I know.”

Back in their room, Caleb only felt the terror continue to mount in his chest. But silence had consumed them both as they attempted to go through the motions of the evening. He couldn’t get the king’s words out of his head. After dinner Gustav had brought Molly into a strong hug, and Caleb could decide whether the man thought he was sending his son off into the world alone or sending him to his death. Caleb was drowning, alone in his thoughts like a man adrift after a shipwreck.

Until something inside his prince snapped like a bowstring and he was holding Caleb tight. Wrapping his arms around Molly carefully he took in the scent of lavender and sandalwood as though he might never be able to hold his lover and do the same again.

“What should I do?” he asked, voice clearly torn and so close to tears Caleb thought he might cry himself.

He swallowed, still encased in strong arms and the heady scent. “I want to be selfish.”

“Part of me wants you to be selfish too. To hear you tell me that I should stay with you. To tell me to run away with you.” His voice was lower and gravely and Caleb felt a damp spot appear on his shoulder.

His emotions came to a head and he pulled back to look deeply into the perfectly carved lines of his prince’s face. A face Caleb wished to grow old beside, to love for decades to come, not just years or even months. A face that had never seen another lose life, not to mention taking them himself. Would it grow battleworn and weary, uncaring of the blood that splashed upon it? Or would it crease in agony, with every life taken weighing more and more on the soul beneath? Caleb didn’t want to know the answer to any of those questions. 

“Then be selfish. You know I will follow you anywhere.”

“You would go with me to war?” Molly asked, almost a whisper as his eyes brimmed with unshed tears.

Caleb nodded, his voice sure to be a traitor at that moment. He would take every second he could with Molly at his side. He would go, and he would fight, even if he felt ill at the thought of taking another life. And though the thought of blood blooming from his prince’s chest made his stomach turn dangerously inside, the thought of watching him leave Caleb behind was worse. Much worse.

Molly waited, ever patient, for Caleb to find his words. “I will follow anywhere you decide is right. I will follow you to hell and back, if that is where you are going.”

“I think the old me wanted to be a hero,” he said softly, cupping Caleb’s cheek. Caleb was helpless but to lean into it. “But I just want to make the world a better place. And I’m only good for doing that on a battlefield.”

The words almost seemed to choke him, but Caleb managed to spit out, “No. No, that’s never been all you were good for. You leave everything you touch better than you found it. We’re all better just for knowing you. You must know that. How can I convince you?” He felt it so truly in his heart he thought it might smother him for Molly to think he was only good for bloodshed.

A sad smile broke across Molly’s face before he closed the gap between them and kissed Caleb, but it was too sweet, too sad, too covered in tears. Caleb felt the world might cave in around him and leave him with this strange bittersweet sadness forever. Nothing else mattered but Molly.

Molly pulled back with a fire in his eyes. “Let’s do it.”

“Do what?” Caleb breathed, terrified for the answer, for the determination in his prince’s eyes. 

He pulled them apart completely but kept Caleb’s hands in his own. “Run away with me. Away from our kingdom, away from everything. We can run all the way to Tal’Dorei if we need to.”

Caleb never thought he would feel such relief. It surged through him so strongly he thought he might collapse without the grounding pressure of Molly’s hands around his own. His voice seemed a traitor again, so he only nodded, much faster this time.

There was a flailing of limbs as they tried to pack their bags while still holding each other, unwilling to be separated. But there was a moment when Molly crashed into Caleb with all the force of a summer storm, winding a hand in his hair and kissing him like it might be the last time. “I’ll be right back. Wait for me here?”

He nodded, trying not to show any panic for his prince. Though he knew the prophecy, he couldn’t help but fear that Molly would be ripped from him the moment he took his eyes away from his form. But he wouldn’t disobey such a request either.

If he needed to, he would chase after Mollymauk into the unknown. To hell and back, like Orpheus, if need be.

But Molly came back within the hour with a small chest filled with gold, a sack to carry clothing in, a woman’s dress, and a case holding a lyre. “I thought you’d want this,” he said softly, opening the case to reveal Caleb’s mother’s lyre, the only thing he had left of her, carved by his father and given to the king as a gift for his fostering.

Tears pricked back into his eyes as he nodded and looked back to the rest of the belongings he’d gathered up on the bed.

Together, with Molly cloaked in women’s clothing, they snuck away to the docks at the first light of dawn and secured passage away from their small kingdom. The air was cold on their skin and they were both hidden away in heavy cloaks, linked as though inseparable around each other’s arms.

Safely tucked away below decks in a hammock and far from the crew with Molly disguised as Caleb’s wife, they lay facing each other. Caleb stared into Molly’s perfect face, wondering if he could ever learn to sculpt and capture such beauty. He was more stunning than any woman Caleb had ever seen, no matter what he wore.

Molly smiled, easy and slow, lighting up each of his features in such a way that Caleb was grateful for his good memory. Their foreheads were pressed together and the world around them rocked gently as they traveled far from any prophecies or bloodshed. As Molly spoke, his breath washed over Caleb, warm and sweet.

“I love you.”

Caleb couldn’t stop his own smile and the quick press he gave to Molly’s lips. “I will always love you.”

A porthole was suddenly caught with all the light of the rising sun, illuminating him and his prince in stunning golds. As their lips met again, light seemed to consume them in a flood, like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.

_Today of all days_

_See_

_How the most dangerous thing is to love_

_How you will heal and you'll rise above_

_Crowned by an overture bold and beyond_

_Ah, it's more courageous to overcome._


End file.
